Game

In many ways, Ripple Island genuinely stuns me. It is one of the best looking Famicom games and is massively ahead of its time. In other ways, it’s massively OF its time. This is a 1988 Sunsoft visual novel. Sunsoft was really coming into their own around this time on the Famicom, and would make some of the very best action games. They’re well known for Blaster Master, Batman, Journey to Silius, Gimmick… not so much the visual novels. This only came out in Japan, and we sadly didn’t get it over here.

Game

In Ripple Island you play as Kyle, a young boy who lives on the island. The evil Emperor Groaker uses magic to ravage the island and kidnap princess Nasarell. The king declares that whoever shall stop the fiend will get Nasarell’s hand in marriage, so Kyle sets off to save his home. Along the way you travel through a beautiful and varied island, talk to a bunch of cute bunnies, and team up with a girl named Cal.

Game

A LOT of Japanese visual novels of the time had the same gameplay loop. You had to talk to every single character, exhaust all dialogue trees, look at everything, touch everything, then you could move on, Ripple Island is NOT like that. It’s a lot more like a classic Western point and click, than anything. You explore a small confined area, grab items, use them against other items or objects in the scenery, solve simple minor puzzles, and then move on.

Ripple Island takes place over five chapters, which are their own contained little areas. This helps keep it segmented and doesn’t let it get super convoluted or bloated. The areas are nice, varied, and have some good puzzles.

To really enjoy Ripple Island, you’d need to like that classic adventure style of game. As the world’s biggest Zork fan, I do, in fact, like that style of game. But it’s not for everyone. Despite that, I think its charm really shines through. It’s not very long, and rather easy for this style of adventure game, so I do highly recommend it.